I have been digging around on the net looking for some rare books on Taiwan history, and came across this little gem. The book was written over two years from 1916-18 by Janet B. Montgomery McGovern, an Anthropologist who came to Taiwan to teach English to the children of the Japanese officials in power at the time. If you skip the long-winded introduction and preface, it is a riveting read.
You can download it here.
https://library.uoregon.edu/ec/e-asia/read/headz.pdf
5 Likes
Explant
September 15, 2018, 11:02am
2
Thanks for sharing that, I’m looking forward to reading this one!
No problem, it really is a fascinating account of life in Taiwan a hundred years ago.
Looks interesting
Among the Headhunters of Formosa is not only a rare account of Japanese-ruled Taiwan – a time when the country was off-limits to travellers – but also a valuable description of Taiwan’s aboriginal tribes by a daring, globe-trotting American anthropologist. Janet Blair Montgomery McGovern was initially drawn to Taiwan by its great beauty, first seen on a voyage to Japan. After several years in Kyoto teaching English and studying Buddhism, she secured a position at a government school in Taipei, and enjoyed an incredibly action-packed stay in Taiwan from 1916 to 1918.
A light work schedule left McGovern with plenty of time for exploring, and despite obstacles and disapproval from the Japanese officials, she made numerous trips into the mountains. She was a frequent visitor to the Taiya areas of northern Taiwan, and, during school vacations, she traveled further afield, visiting the Ami, Paiwan, and other tribes. In some instances she was the first white woman the aborigines had seen.
Though headhunting hadn’t been entirely stamped out, McGovern didn’t feel threatened by the aborigines. She was warmly received, something she thought was due to them regarding her “as the reincarnation of one of the seventeenth-century Dutch, whose rule over them, three hundred years ago, has become a sacred tradition.”
McGovern was especially interested in the matriarchal nature of some of Taiwan’s aborigines, believing they offered a glimpse of a lost age at the dawn of civilization when women supposedly held more power. She was also determined to investigate rumors of the existence of a pygmy tribe.
Originally published in 1922, Among the Headhunters of Formosa is an exciting and sympathetic account from a real-life, female Indiana Jones. (Indeed, her son, Professor William Montgomery McGovern, is often credited as the likely inspiration for the Spielberg character of Indiana Jones.)
If you want a clean e-book version (reflowable text, modern formatting, with errors fixed), you can buy one from us for the princely sum of NT$60: Among the Headhunters of Formosa | Janet B. Montgomery McGovern
Alternatively to get SMC’s hardback version at a very reasonable price, visit the SMC bookshop near Gongguan MRT. http://www.smcbook.com.tw
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Explant
September 16, 2018, 11:35am
6
Thanks for that! Will be getting a copy when I get home from work. I prefer paper books, but live in the south do you guys sell hard copies?
Will get the digital soon as I’m impatient and 60nt is hard to say no to for such an intriguing title!
Glad to be aware of the website, and camphor press is the perfect name
Brendon
September 17, 2018, 6:54am
7
Every time I scroll past this topic in the list I misread it as “Among the Headhunters of Foru mosa”, and I’m like, why would anyone hang out with them ?
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So are you going to read it?
Explant
September 17, 2018, 12:02pm
10
Just bought an E copy but haven’t figured out how to find it and download haha
